Remember this race?

[cfun]

I remember this race in the late 80's who else does, I wonder who owns the tape to this old race

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PG213b...eature=related

where are these boats now, Unipart Bust, Clark group probably crushed, Follett cars Sweden, Fay's one err maybe in a field, Macavity may be in the USA, Rejuga now Pash's beast, Flippin Eck being splashed in Malta, Mercury special probably sitting in a boat yard in Sweden rotting, Brut is this the duff one in France? and the start boat a Bellamy surface drive Phantom still going somewhere around Brighton no doubt, any others I left out ...

[FLYING FISH]

Looks like Kim Leachman is putting all his Unipart snippets on to youtube.
You could purchase these tapes from `Team Spirit`or direct from the film producers at the time.I find it a shame that all these 3 minute clips quite often come from the proper film of 30-60 min duration.As far as I know Jon Fuller is the only guy who has been prepared to put the full films on to the site ,and as a bonus can be downloaded.As Jon knows I regularly bone him to add more films on the site (at present there is about 20hrs waiting to be put on there)and Jon knows I could terrify him further with another 200hrs worth of vintage tape.I think the set up Jon has, is ideal where the quality can be maintained ,and the films downloaded so there is always a permanent record around.The ironic thing about all this ,is that a 3min recent clip has several hundred views,whereas the real rare vintage stuff of 30mins only seems to get in double figure views,so from that I can only deduce it either bores the pants off the viewer or the site attracts the 20-30yr olds who cannot relate to the older era.As you know Jon I really appreciate what you have done so far,and despite the above ramblings I would ask that the remaining tapes are added to the site before you really get bogged down with the racing season.

[Blue mist]

Unipart is in the motorboat museum Basildon Essex. Surface drive Phantom was in Brighton a while back and was for sale .

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by cfun

I remember this race in the late 80's who else does, I wonder who owns the tape to this old race

where are these boats now, Unipart Bust, Clark group probably crushed, Follett cars Sweden, Fay's one err maybe in a field, Macavity may be in the USA, Rejuga now Pash's beast, Flippin Eck being splashed in Malta, Mercury special probably sitting in a boat yard in Sweden rotting, Brut is this the duff one in France? and the start boat a Bellamy surface drive Phantom still going somewhere around Brighton no doubt, any others I left out ...

Where did you hear that Flippin Eck was being splashed in Malta? I don't think Steve Curtis would be too happy about that.

Looking at all those great boats running in 1989 it would be fantastic if we could get a fleet like that running again but in the present climate I would have thought now almost impossible. The whole market has changed anyway.
ML.

[cfun]

Originally Posted by FLYING FISH

Looks like Kim Leachman is putting all his Unipart snippets on to youtube.
You could purchase these tapes from `Team Spirit`or direct from the film producers at the time.I find it a shame that all these 3 minute clips quite often come from the proper film of 30-60 min duration

Used to help out Mike and Helen of Team spirit sell their goodies at race meetings back then, I seem to recall they purchased the rights of team spirit from someone else back in the 80's may be wrong though

Bump into Mike occasionally, he asked me a few years back if I wanted to buy some of the remaining tapes he had still knocking around, but I never did get from him which races the tapes were from as many were European races and not the UK ones

This race footage may have been partially subsidised by Kim Leachman and Unipart

AS you say it would be really great to see the whole 60mins and I'm sure Pash would be ecstatic to see his boat throughout the race

The thing with Pash's Planatec which at the time surprised me was in spite of newer boats with the same Sabre Marathon diesel engines arriving to challenge ... ie the 40' Hunton Kent Koi and the 38' Cougar Flippin Eck neither seemed to have the speed or rough weather ability to beat the old Planatec

I had read either here or maybe other boating forums and I seem to remember a pic of the old cougar ending up in Malta's famous splashing grounds, however not sure how upset Steve Curtis would be as now with all the stepped monos this is an old and slower design and some folks have implied that it was also copied from an American boat hull in the early 80's

[Pash 1]

Originally Posted by cfun

The thing with Pash's Planatec which at the time surprised me was in spite of newer boats with the same Sabre Marathon diesel engines arriving to challenge ... ie the 40' Hunton Kent Koi and the 38' Cougar Flippin Eck neither seemed to have the speed or rough weather ability to beat the old Planatec

Will be interesting to see if any of the boats in 2009 will be as good as a 35 year old Planatec

[Tony Davis]

Originally Posted by cfun

: and I seem to remember a pic of the old cougar ending up in Malta's famous splashing grounds, however not sure how upset Steve Curtis would be as now

I'm told Steve and the Chaudron lot are best mates, so I don't spose he'd be that bothered.

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by cfun

The thing with Pash's Planatec which at the time surprised me was in spite of newer boats with the same Sabre Marathon diesel engines arriving to challenge ... ie the 40' Hunton Kent Koi and the 38' Cougar Flippin Eck neither seemed to have the speed or rough weather ability to beat the old Planatec

I think "Flying Fish" could arbitrate here because from memory, both myself and Dredge ran with my mate John Baker in the 38ft Cougar Flippin Eck, the Planatec never did beat Flippin Eck in any of the races that they both competed in and where they both finished. Sometimes it was close but Flippin Eck always had the edge on speed and deep water handling. The Hunton was no slouch either. But I am always willing to be corrected if wrong because it was a long time ago.

The Sabre Marathon Engines at 600hp were bloody awful and in the case of Flippin Eck quickly wore out the cylinder bores. This resulted in Flippin Eck losing the Worlds at Bournemouth in 1989 or 1990, I am not sure which year. However, when in the lead they ran out of oil. We had realised that one engine was burning all it's oil within 2/3 laps so we had rigged up a 20 gallon oil tank with a pump so that when the oil light went on we hit the pump to pump in more oil!

Unfortunately, on this particularly important day, the riggers had fitted the drive legs on the wrong sides and they had to be changed back whilst the boat was in the launching slings so there was a major panic going on before this last Worlds race. This resulted in the crew of Dredgy & Co forgetting to put the oil in the spare tank which resulted in Flippin Eck running out on the last lap when in the lead just by the Pier. John Baker was not happy because he would have been world champion in one more lap, but as Tony Hamilton says, "That’s racing".

I am sure that Dredge will remember that race!!!

[BluFin]

Originally Posted by Tony Davis

I'm told Steve and the Chaudron lot are best mates, so I don't spose he'd be that bothered.

It's 10% different so it dont matter

[Jon Fuller]

Pete Currington told me it was all above board.

A US1-38 is good, coz you can get a lot of passengers in them.

Almost as good as a Crompton.

[FLYING FISH]

From the fish files.

Where boats both finished

1988 - Hunton Gazelle beat Rejuga 2 times

1989 - Flippin Eck beat Rejuga 4 times,Rejuga beat Flippin Eck 1 time (2nd Guernsey race)

Considering Rejuga was 14yrs older there should have been some progress in construction,but the old boat still hanging in there.If it starts beating Garmin there will be some bragging rights down at Drivers.

[cfun]

HEEELP ... I feel ganged up upon

Well even in such eminent offshore company, I remember on many occasions it seemed the old planatec appeared to be puling a fast one on it's younger rival challengers ... If only we had a time machine ... I could say ... look there told you so!!! now we'll have to wait as ML says for Pash to prove it

The only thing I can think of, is that the times it was beating the other rivals it or they broke down therefore not showing up in the result files that Flying fish has so kindly unearthed, perhaps the only evidence left may be in those tapes still hanging around in peoples attics, who knows perhaps one day more will re-surface in full


PS ... the first time I saw the Cougar with its fantastic multi colour scheme was at the 1st race of the season in Portsmouth ... erm maybe was it 88? I kinda went ... WOW that looks the business

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by cfun

HEEELP ... I feel ganged up upon

PS ... the first time I saw the Cougar with its fantastic multi colour scheme was at the 1st race of the season in Portsmouth ... erm maybe was it 88? I kinda went ... WOW that looks the business

You’re not being ganged up on, I just wanted the record a little straighter.

With regard to the colour scheme, that was a surprise for John Baker done by Clive Curtis as John was being followed around by the BBC camera crew for a "Boys & Their Toys" fly on the wall thingy at the time and they recorded his reaction when he first saw the boat looking like that. I think JF may have this on the Boatmad media section somewhere as I sent him the Video tape a couple of years ago.

[littlenige]

I have the TVS footage (you know, no commentary!) of the London-Brighton race from a number of years ago, won by Macavity. Just need to learn how to get it onto my pc then upload it somewhere! Help?!

[Ciao]

I could give you my best advice on how to get a VHS tape online, but I suspect my way is not the best.

One of the reasons I haven't put films up is because I am not sure about copyright stuff - and do not want to find out the hard way.

[Erin]

the first boat shown on the film fay's one, that is cliff smiths old class2 cat m20 simply the best before colin stonemon built the canopy onto ii in 1994, it was cliff smiths in 1995 onwards to which he won the needles trophy in 95 when racing was racing. now im afraid to say that we watched simply the best burn on the fire on bonfire night in 2001 but mark and dad still have the nose cones in there gardens as plant pots..........

[boat]

Flippin Eck is in Malta, the hull only but not the deck if i'm not mistaken. i'm not sure its Flippin Eck but it is a yellow Cougar 38. and it has never been splashed and its not owned anymore by Chaudron

[cfun]

Originally Posted by boat

Flippin Eck is in Malta, the hull only but not the deck if i'm not mistaken. i'm not sure its Flippin Eck but it is a yellow Cougar 38. and it has never been splashed and its not owned anymore by Chaudron

assuming the hull isn't trashed a perfect project for a brave person, go over buy it and bring another classic boat home to race and paint it back in those amazing colours

[boat]

and it is true that Steve Curtis and his father are best mates with Chaudron

[boat]

it would be a huge project as the boat has no deck....now let me be more precise, the boat does have a deck but its not the original deck, but one which looks strikingly familiar to that of the Phantom 28 :-) and it might be getting rigged with quad outboards sometime